Alex
Alex M, also known as Alex the Beast and J Morris the Review Guy, is an American rapper, songwriter and Youtuber. He played a caricature of himself in Dustin vs Jacob - Ultimate Community Royale. Biography / Entrance into the Community Alex was born in Charleston, West Virginia, USA on November 17th, 2000. Raised in a small town, Alex was homeschooled, leading to them to have the ability and time to develop a love of arts of many kinds and an early, fond love of the internet and online games, in which they met many of their longstanding friends, mostly on the MMORPG World of Warcraft. After discovering Epic Rap Battles of History in 2014, Alex began to make parody battles on their Nintendo 3DS, where they would take beats from existing Epic Rap Battles of History and employ their own lyricism and match ups in a one-take format. Due to a stent of extreme anxiety that had threatened their health, even leading to hospitalization, Alex was very weary of larger communities, largely keeping to themselves as a lone wolf, besides a tight-knit grouping of friends they had known since 2009. For awhile, Alex struggled to fit in with fellow fans of ERB on the Epic Rap Battles of History Wikia, where they would regularly give in-depth reviews of various battles released by people, participate in the occasional lower-tier tournament, give pages of predictions regarding upcoming ERBS, and oftentimes make their own battles without beats. After being hacked not once but twice, Alex reinvented themselves on the Wikia as DennisRocking, wherein they began developing more confidence on the platform. Despite this, their activity dropped as they pursued various interests. Always following parody series and fanmade series in general for ERB, Alex began to linger around the Soundcloud fanmade rap battle scene, where they would write detailed critiques of battles they felt like they had much to say about, in hopes of helping improve battles from the outskirts. After working up enough courage, they finally noticed the opportunity to join the community on the back of a rap battle tournament being formulated. After contacting Tuna, Alex joined the tournament, where they would eventually battle Honeycombs96. The performance right off the bat from a newcomer grabbed the attention of numerous server owners, particularly Dustin, who had been developing his own rap battle series at the time. After joining the community, Alex quickly acclimated with numerous people and became a mainstay in the community for the future to come. J Morris the Review Guy In early 2018, Alex began uploading World of Warcraft videos to his Youtube channel, entitled J Morris at the time. They embarked on the Ironman Leveling challenge on a night elf druid. Once that had ended, they uploaded a plethora of content in a variety of subjects, such as World of Warcraft rant videos with their best friend, Overwatch competitive videos--as well as hide and seek videos and comedy videos such as the Doomrage series--, mental health videos, and general rant videos about topics that interested them. On February 23rd, 2018, Alex uploaded a longtail, unedited review of one of their favorite albums, Drift by the band Erra, in which they went into detail of the record for nearly thirty minutes long. This stemmed from a longtime admiration of album review channels that they enjoyed, such as Coverkillernation, Anthony Fantano, ARTV and more. At the time, reception for the channel was very low and viewership was scant, mostly just friends and family and alternate accounts. This resulted in Alex taking a month and a half break from the platform due to creative burnout and a lack of motivation due to no results being formulated. In the midway point of 2018, Alex began to take Youtube much more serious, becoming a variety channel that regularly uploaded reviews of albums that they owned---some of which hitting 100 views, which helped fuel their motivation--, quick reviews of the television series the Walking Dead when the seasons were on, Netflix show reviews, various World of Warcraft and Overwatch guides, community videos and more. This also spawned the longrunning series 5 Minute Reviews, wherein Alex would review an album within the five minute mark. Unhappy with the direction of the channel and how they presented themselves, Alex rerouted the channel. They began to wittle down the miscellaneous videos: food reviews, Walking Dead videos, community videos, Overwatch guides, World of Warcraft Ironman Challenge videos, of which they made three separate series of. During this time, very few things remained of the original channel. They renamed the channel from J Morris to J Morris the Review Guy, focusing solely on music reviews and reactions. At this time, they began to cover newer music as opposed to other material previously released. Channel art was remade, a brand new intro was made, a new outro was chosen, background music was tested, a brand new banner was brought on, and the infamous branding still utilized to this day, "keep it high, keep it tight! It's J Morris the Review Guy!" was born. Their community was sparse during this reinvention. Some followed, but much of their retention and viewership fell down. In the Summer, they tested out a List Week series, where they did a video every day for 7 days--which turned out to be 8 days--where viewership was at rock bottom. They were long, fully-edited videos that were made about various topics. Due to not understanding thumbnail design or SEO, Alex was discouraged and nearly quit Youtube on numerous times. Their upload schedule became sporadic and far from regular. A spark began at the end of 2018, though! Alex was able to begin building a fanbase as their confidence boosted up. They upgraded equipment from a headset microphone to a Blue Yeti. They upgraded from a grainy laptop webcam to a Nikon CoolPix. In 2019, they swore to take Youtube very seriously. 2019 was the year of the channel beginning to grow into the trajectory it would hold to this day; consistent, in-depth and heavily opinionated music reviews, ranging from album reviews, track reviews, list videos, and series, most notably Albums I Liked, in which Alex would go over their favorite albums from the previous month--a series still ongoing to this day--and Throwback Tuesday, a series in which Alex would review an older, more "classic" album. In early 2019, Alex had a spout of drama with the lead singer of Cane Hill, Elijah Witt, over a review of the band's EP, Kill the Sun, notably one of the most negative reviews currently published on the channel. Elijah Witt reposted the review onto his Twitter, resulting in the fanbase actively terrorizing the channel for a few weeks, dislike bombing various reviews both previously released and further released. This caused a mini-scuffle between the rap battle community campaigning on Twitter in favor of J Morris the Review Guy and the frenzied Cane Hill fan base. Throughout 2019, especially near the ladder half, Alex began to see more success, with more and more individual album reviews garnering over 1,000 views. Multiple milestones were reached during the year. More artists and bands began to take notice of the channel, even attracting the eyes of longtime music review titan Anthony Fantano, aka TheNeedleDrop, resulting in a shout on his Instagram. During the year, Alex garnered shout outs by numerous labels, bands and artists such as Hoodie Allen, Shura, nothing,nowhere, Sumerian Records, Metal Blades Records and more. This also gave Alex the opportunity to interview various artists, such as Stavros Rigos of Poem and Danny DiBella of Glass Crown. As of February, 2020, J Morris the Review Guy has gained over 2,500 subscribers and over 130,000 views across the channel. Lyrics Yeah Make way, make way I think it’s time to put an end to this I’ll be the 100 dollar bill amongst all of you counterfeits Different shades of people with different intentions And I think that we all have strange pasts to mention (Yeet) And I don’t have too much time; but I’ll still hit this (Fuck!) It’s time to roll my sleeves up! Time to get down to business! Oh! Which Vlad are we talkin’ bout here? Oh, P! It might sound a little bit bitter But I couldn’t remember, ‘cause the lack of memorability in your series is the only thing here that’s Sinister! “I ripped off Frenzy and Matthew! Look at me, guys! How cool am I?!” “I churn out simplistic battles on the flip of a dime! Screaming one voice into a mic!” Ahem, Walk, let me Bridge this rap gap: That verse was a bit touchy. Try not to drop in and out of the community bi-monthly before you go around pushing people’s buttons. Have no Avav-tange to your Legion of supporters here, even if you are quasi You should Walk back to the Outback; This community has had it’s healthy servings of quirky Aussies Adroit, after all this drama; I’m surprised you stepped into this arena; but you seem cool Although the Geon & Adroit editor duo is a yikes move: Not a very whiz thing to do Matthew would be fine as a creator if his joke battles weren’t better than his mainstream I want to enjoy your creations... but seriously! PICK A FUCKING SERIES This is a bloodbath; I smell blood in the water But you all did enter in with a Beast What respect did you expect to garner? Give all of your series a beating You’re all my garnish This is my league Full of dweebs and creeps; blurring the lines of humility Not to flex or anything, but Multi handed over the biggest server to ME. Watch your feet! We don’t want to all step on Dustin’s God Complex Might’ve rode in on Mat4yo’s coattails, but the quality comparison is not a contest I’d nope the fuck out of a cinema if you were the Director. Stick to CMRB I mean, check your early covers! Seems to me it took you until 17 to hit puberty! And Fel--this is gonna be a Funhouse--sorry but I have to go for the throat You think that you are such a pro with your one note delivery; God no. Your past is sketchy and I think you know that You’re predictable: Go away, come back, go away, come back Look at your opponents so far! You’re not harder! You’re just a white knighting bandwagoning A-tier cock rider! Didn’t mean to go so far in; sorry about all that. Step up to bat and make your disses match! Maybe you all forgot, but I came INTO this community and MADE my way by making diss tracks Seems my times up! I could go on for awhile, but that is all for me! I wish you all luck in the rest of this mayhem; I take my leave: Sincerely: Julian the Beast Trivia * Alex's favorite color is green. * Alex's favorite animal is the giant panda. * Alex owns a female Beagle named Sophia. * Alex's specific rap battle series, Epic Rap Battles of Warcraft, stemmed from a longtime love of the game and the knowledge that came with that love. It was discontinued and archived due to a lack of interest. * As a writer, Alex has penned numerous novels, short stories, poetry collections and series, all hand-written and currently unpublished. * Alex is a self-proclaimed metalhead, but enjoys various genres both mainstream and underground across the entire music spectrum. * Alex came out as Non-Binary in 2019, going by they/them pronouns, but also he/him for ease of access. * Alex is of Scottish and British heritage, as well as Sioux Native-American. * Alex is a lover of hats, especially beanies, fluffy hats, toboggans and fedoras. * Alex is a former owner of the main FRB server.